Exit day. We packed up and headed over across Little Gabbro to the portage out of there, where the outfitter was going to meet us. I remember this portage out being fairly long, and EXTREMELY buggy. It was warm and humid and under the canopy of the forest on the portage trail, every mosquito in northern Minnesota must have come to life.

The outfitter picked us up and drove us back to their location on Fenske Lake where we showered up and gave them back their rental equipment and sorted all our stuff back into our respective cars. Me and the Milwaukee duo drove all the way back there, then I continued on to Chicago. Keith and Wade just had to get back to the Twin Cities.

So, all in all it was an awesome trip and made all of us fall in the love with the Boundary Waters...we've come back as more or less this same group every year since and plan to continue doing so for as long as we still can.

One interesting thing I think about when I think back to this trip is how different of an experience it was for me personally than every trip since. I went in basically blind, not having planned the route at all and not really knowing anything about the varieties of EP's available, the different areas of the Boundary Waters, etc. I just jumped in the canoe and followed Wade's lead, who was the one who planned that stuff. It wasn't until after this trip that I became obsessed with learning the area and staring at the maps of all the lakes and daydreaming about possible routes. For this one, I was just along for the ride and part of me really looks back fondly at that experience. I just kind of soaked up being in the woods in a cool place with my buddies without worrying about the maps or the different lakes around that I was missing or whatever.

Either way, awesome trip, and the first of many awesome trips that have come and will come!